1st Edition

Technology and American Democracy

By Anthony Trotta Copyright 2024
302 Pages
by Routledge

302 Pages
by Routledge

302 Pages
by Routledge

The growth and proliferation of technology in American society places new demands on the U.S. government and the health of its democracy, affecting both policymaking and public administration. Technology and American Democracy explores the underpinning democratic theories, including constitutional justifications, that guide decision makers during the application of Information Technology (IT)... Read more

1. Technocracy and Deliberative Democracy

2. E-Government and E-Governance

3. Technological Determinism: A Technocratic Rationale and American Democracy

4. Permissionless Innovation and the Precautionary Principle

5. The Concept of Money

6. Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, and the Concept of Money

7. Government Regulatory Efforts of the Cryptocurrency Industry in the U.S. Federal System

Biography

Anthony Trotta holds a Ph.D. in Public Administration from the School of Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers University-Newark and has extensive university-level teaching and course development experience in political science, public administration, and public policy (both in the traditional and virtual classroom) at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Dr. Trotta is also the author of Advances in E-Governance (Routledge, 2018).

"Anthony Trotta has significantly elevated the discourse on a core tension in American public policy: expert knowledge vs. participatory democracy. Technological determinism—rational, unbiased, efficient—is widely assumed to be the overarching architecture of American progress. Trotta, however, broadens and deepens our understanding of public policy tensions via a deep analysis of deliberative democracy—politically oriented, participatory, discursive—that is grounded in an inherent and growing mistrust of government. As such, he presents a valuable framework for understanding the critical and enduring tensions that are enduring threats to American society along political fault lines such as: technological remediation of global warming vs. public resistance to lifestyle disruptions, public health interventions to confront pandemics vs. discomfort with vaccines and stringent shutdowns, and  the value of government-issued money vs. cryptocurrencies. Trotta’s Technology and American Democracy is a welcome addition to university studies and policy debates across economics, technology, political science, cultural studies and beyond."

Marc Holzer, Distinguished Research Professor at Suffolk University-Boston; Founding Dean of the School of Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers University; Elected Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration; Past-President of the American Society for Public Administration